River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

I thought this was a pretty interesting hand.

PokerStars $10/$20 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
Hand Converter Tool from DeucesCracked.com

Preflop: Hero is BB with J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
UTG folds, MP calls, CO folds, Button folds, <font color="#FF0000">SB raises</font>, Hero calls, MP calls.

Flop: (6.00 SB) J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
<font color="#FF0000">SB bets</font>, <font color="#FF0000">Hero raises</font>, MP folds, SB calls.

Turn: (5.00 BB) 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
SB checks, <font color="#FF0000">Hero bets</font>, <font color="#FF0000">SB raises</font>, Hero calls.

River: (9.00 BB) 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#FF0000">SB bets</font>, <font color="#FF0000">Hero raises</font>, SB folds.

Final Pot: 11.00 BB


Board: Jc 6d 4s 3d 7d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 31.250% 25.00% 06.25% 12 3.00 { KcJd }
Hand 1: 68.750% 62.50% 06.25% 30 3.00 { JJ+, 66, 44, AJs, KJs, QJs, J9s+, AJo, KJo, QJo }

So on the river against (what I think is) his range, I obviously don't have enough equity to raise for value. Its also a pretty easy call getting 10:1. What I'm wondering is if it is more profitable to raise this river.

Heisenb3rg is a very disciplined player from what I've seen, so he can definitely make correct, tough folds. I can credibly represent a number of hands that are beating an overpair or AJ. J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]X[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] is definitely in my range, as is J7s, J5s, 55, 77, 57s, etc. If I'm wrong and he calls his entire range, its not a 1BB mistake, as I still have 31% equity. Hence, semi-bluff. What do you think? Comments on rest of hand are also welcome (preflop 3bet?), but it seems pretty standard.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

i'm sorry but this is just madness. you are throwing basic principles of game theory out the window.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

Doesn't Heisenberg have a WtSD% of like 41?

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

yea heisenberg isnt reraise bluffing this blank turn much at all IMO, i am proly folding to his turn raise

either way, if i decide to play on i am not reraising the river

u got him to fold so ur looking at it in hindsight, it wasnt a good play

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

I personally love your thought process here. Whether it's misapplied or not, I am not sure, but I'm convinced that if you continually approach every hand with this kind of intensity you will be a big winner over your poker lifetime.

I think raising rivers with calling hands is an art that very few players have perfected. Naturally this type of play should be done against players who can make somewhat big folds, and those type of players are most likely to be tags.

Here's an ad hoc list I have concocted to help evaluate the merits to this value/bluff river raise:

1) Does it appear that you picked your victim wisely? Yes, Heisen is a tag.

2) Is the river card unlikely to help your opponent? Yes.

3) Can you logically represent this river card? Yes, since you called from the BB, it is certainly possible for you to have 5x or XdXd and your opponent still has the additional worry that you 5 outed him.

4) Is the river card scary enough to get your opponent to possibly fold? A somewhat subjective question, but a good river card for you is a card that completes atleast two possible draws you could have, and this river card satisfies that requirement. When two possible draws hit and a tag knows that you can logically have both and he also knows you couldve just 5 outed him, then your river raise has a chance of getting a better one pair hand to fold.

5) Is the tag significantly more likely to have one pair here instead of 2pair+? IMO, the answer is yes. Given the way Heisen played this hand I believe he is much more likely to have a one pair hand becuz most tags IMO would 3bet/lead with a set OOP and Heisen cant have 2 pair for obvious reasons.

6) Is Heisen capable of bet/folding or making expert laydowns? I have never played with Heisen so Im not sure.

7) Do you have the proper image to pull this play off?

8) Do you already have a calling hand on the river? Yes, you beat JTs/QJs/ and you tie KJ. Thats enough to call.

If the answer to each one of these questions is yes, then you have a very compelling case supporting a river value/bluff raise. Also it is worth noting that we need Heisen to fold a better hand more than 1/12 times to make raising the river better than calling. Folding the same hand would be coup also.

Again, I would like to reiterate that I love the way you played this hand whether the river raise is correct or not.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

ILP,
FPS much? This is the kind of thing that can give you a very marginal additional edge when you apply it correctly, but will cost you a lot more if you misapply it.

Btw, I'd never fold a showdownable hand if I was Heis in this spot because of the "f*** him" factor (unless there was a ton of history).

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

"ILP,
FPS much?"

The answer is no, when I play poker I am genuinely trying to make the best play I can each stage of every street. I do not always succeed in this effort but thats my overall goal.

"This is the kind of thing that can give you a very marginal additional edge when you apply it correctly, but will cost you a lot more if you misapply it."

Even if this statement is true it doesnt add any insight to this dicussion. What youve just said can apply to many decisions in poker.

Obviously knowing when to execute this type of play will not add that much to our edge beucuz the right spot to deploy this play doesnt come up that often but doesnt this kind of thinking lead to a slippery slope? In other words, isn't it possible that this approach, of passing up several potentially profitable plays simply becuz our edge is small in each isolated case, can lead to a non-insignificant decrease in our overall winrate?

Shouldnt we all have an extensive playbook that covers all contingencies no matter how rare they may occur?

"Btw, I'd never fold a showdownable hand if I was Heis in this spot because f-villain (unless there was a ton of history)."

Well then that proves that this play should not be run against you.

BTW your statement that this play can cost you alot if you misapply it is not really true if one is putting the requisite thought process into making this play. Mistakes will be made cuz were human but this spot will not come up often enough for these mistakes to be costly.

It should be quite rare when it's correct to value/bluff raise the river after being check/raised on the turn. IMO, given that were playing from the BB, we have the right board to make this play. Can Heisen bet/fold here? Do we have the right image? Those are the questions I am not sure about, but I still love the OP's thought process. If there's ever a time to run this play. This could be it.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

[ QUOTE ]
Btw, I'd never fold a showdownable hand if I was Heis in this spot because of the "f*** him" factor (unless there was a ton of history).

[/ QUOTE ]

I would never even think of pulling this play off against anyone except an expert player like Heisenb3rg. I would never fold in his spot here either, but I am nowhere near the player that Heis is.

[ QUOTE ]
FPS much? This is the kind of thing that can give you a very marginal additional edge when you apply it correctly, but will cost you a lot more if you misapply it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even if he calls 100% of the time, I'm only losing .7BB. Not a small number, I know, but this situation probably comes up once every couple thousand hands.

Oh, and at the time of this hand, I don't think I'd been caught bluffing at all by Heisenb3rg, so my image was probably solid/decent.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

ILP, i disagree on so many counts.
[ QUOTE ]

Here's an ad hoc list I have concocted to help evaluate the merits to this value/bluff river raise:

1) Does it appear that you picked your victim wisely? Yes, Heisen is a tag.


[/ QUOTE ]

disagree. heisen is very showdown bound. it's unlikely that he folds less than an optimal amount.

[ QUOTE ]

2) Is the river card unlikely to help your opponent? Yes.


[/ QUOTE ]

disagree. heisen could have picked up a flush draw. if he had tptk why didn't he just 3-bet the flop?

[ QUOTE ]

4) Is the river card scary enough to get your opponent to possibly fold?


[/ QUOTE ]

the question is not whether he can fold but whether he can fold a better hand.

[ QUOTE ]

6) Is Heisen capable of bet/folding or making expert laydowns? I have never played with Heisen so Im not sure.


[/ QUOTE ]

b/f'ing this river wouldn't be an expert laydown, but rather a very exploitable play. heis (and other good players) tries very hard to avoid being exploitable.


[ QUOTE ]

8) Do you already have a calling hand on the river? Yes, you beat JTs/QJs/ and you tie KJ. Thats enough to call.


[/ QUOTE ]

having a calling hand should make you less inclined to raise, not more.

[ QUOTE ]

Also it is worth noting that we need Heisen to fold a better hand more than 1/12 times to make raising the river better than calling.

[/ QUOTE ]

yes. so if our equity is indeed 31%, he should fold 31%+1/12=39% of his hands. this would be a very exploitable strategy.

in general, it is game-theoretically suboptimal to raise with calling hands. whenever you are considering such a big deviation from optimal strategy, you better make sure your opponent is exploitable.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

ILP,

Sorry if I came off as rude. That was not my intention.

It just seemed to me that if I need a 9-point plan to make this play where every factor has to fall into place I'd be much more likely to just botch it up. This is especially true in online poker where the action is so fast and you have 10-30 seconds to make the play.

It's probably theoretically sound though.

I disagree however with your conclusion that this would be a good play vs me because you are not a favorite vs my showdown range in that spot and therefore the raise is -EV if I'm never folding a better hand.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

ILP,

"Sorry if I came off as rude. That was not my intention."

I didnt think you were being rude at all. Also even if you were rude to me I would never hold that against you:)

"It just seemed to me that if I need a 9-point plan to make this play where every factor has to fall into place I'd be much more likely to just botch it up. This is especially true in online poker where the action is so fast and you have 10-30 seconds to make the play."

Youre concerns are valid, in fact we can even argue that we really have even less time to make this play since we should probably do it in a fluid rhythm. If you think youre much more likely to botch this play up then it would probably be best to never run this play for you as long as youre aware of the potentional lazy thinking that could possibly pollute your game if you take this attitude too far.

Also, lets keep in mind that many profitable exotic plays may indeed be impossible to execute in the heat of battle. The only way to overcome this problem is to be ready to execute the play before the play ever happens. Hence the "playbook" reference. The best way to develope this playbook is to always have a winning player you can talk to about any hand/situation and that's what 2+2 is for.

"I disagree however with your conclusion that this would be a good play vs me because you are not a favorite vs my showdown range in that spot and therefore the raise is -EV."

I did not say that this would be a good play to run vs you. Based on what you said I think it's pretty clear this play would not work vs you.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

fwiw, I would not call heis showdown bound in general. In all likelyhood, he shows down very optimally vs whoever his opponent is. he seems to find folds against me a fairly high percentage of the time when I catch after semi bluffing, or when I fairly clearly represent a hand that is calling down but then improves. Its obviously tough to say how often that includes made hands, but I suspect that is the case some of the time. I also suspect he plays other straightforward tags in a similar fashion.

I also know that if I were in his shoes with an overpair or AJ, against a straightforward tag, I would bet the river and HATE a raise. I think paying off most tags with a one pair hand on this river would be a losing play.

I think this play should be called 'turning a made hand into a bluff' in this case. I think heis shows up with JT/QJ a smallish % of the time, and I do think he will b/f those hands mostly as well.

I'm undecided if I like this play but it is definitely interesting.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

I like it... a lot

I know my river range here and if I folded this, I folded a better hand... Cause it basically includes

Occasional 56s type hands (which have a striaght)
AK diamond type hands (which have a flush)
or.. pairs higher to or equal to yours...

You raised the river really quickly too on a card that I thought may have been scary to you as well (the 3rd diamond came in, and I didnt raise you on the flop, but on the turn).

River bluff raising is normally -EV against me, cause im a SD monkey, but here it's a pretty good spot.

BTW RZK, the reason river bluff raises like this are so effective is because people dont play optimally.

The key idea is this: A solid TAG vs a solid tag, is never re-raise bluffing this river.
It's re-raise bluffs that kill strategies such as this... But because they are so so rare in practise, that raising in spots like this is an exploitable, yet effective play.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

[ QUOTE ]
I did not say that this would be a good play to run vs you. Based on what you said I think it's pretty clear this play would not work vs you.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I suck at reading.

[ QUOTE ]
I like it...
I folded a better hand

[/ QUOTE ]
Results oriented, but still...

ZOMG!

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

"ILP, i disagree on so many counts.
Quote:Here's an ad hoc list I have concocted to help evaluate the merits to this value/bluff river raise:
1) Does it appear that you picked your victim wisely? Yes, Heisen is a tag.
disagree. heisen is very showdown bound. it's unlikely that he folds less than an optimal amount."

All I am implying here is that Heisen passed the first screening test of being a tag/player trying to paly well.


" Quote:2) Is the river card unlikely to help your opponent? Yes.
disagree. heisen could have picked up a flush draw."

Just becuz Heisen could have a flush draw doesnt mean the river card is likely to have helped him. A flush draw in Heisen's range should certainly be discounted since Im sure he doesnt always C/R the turn with a FD in a spot where there is no apparent FE.


"if he had tptk why didn't he just 3-bet the flop?"

Waiting til the turn with TP strong kicker or better is a fine play in this spot, so is just 3betting the flop. Im sure Heisen mixes up his play here vs another tag-like player.


"Quote:4) Is the river card scary enough to get your opponent to possibly fold?
the question is not whether he can fold but whether he can fold a better hand."

Yes, that was implied when I said fold. I didnt know I needed to be clearer on this point.


" Quote:6) Is Heisen capable of bet/folding or making expert laydowns? I have never played with Heisen so Im not sure.
b/f'ing this river wouldn't be an expert laydown, but rather a very exploitable play. heis (and other good players) tries very hard to avoid being exploitable."

I dont want to get into a semantic's battle about what "expert" means. The point is, if you see a player who can make an "big" laydown in a certain spot then there's a good chance they are a thinking player and against such a thinking player it can be possible to use their thoughts against them.

Also your idea of exploitable is flawed. Remember exploitable plays are potentially the most profitable plays of all. Your goal should be to find as many players/spot where you can be as exploitable as possible and get away with it. If you think there is a natural dichotomy between "exploitable" and "expert" you are dead wrong. In other words, If you think these two terms are mutually exclusive you are dead wrong. So when you say "b/f'ing this river wouldn't be an expert laydown, but rather a very exploitable play" you really dont know what youre talking about.


" Quote:8) Do you already have a calling hand on the river? Yes, you beat JTs/QJs/ and you tie KJ. Thats enough to call. having a calling hand should make you less inclined to raise, not more."

Again this statement is dead wrong. The fact that we already have to commit one bet on the river means we are now getting much better odds on a bluff raise. If we didnt have a calling hand on the river our bluff/raise odds would be cut in half.


" Quote:Also it is worth noting that we need Heisen to fold a better hand more than 1/12 times to make raising the river better than calling.
yes. so if our equity is indeed 31%, he should fold 31%+1/12=39% of his hands. this would be a very exploitable strategy."

I dont care if bet/folding the river for Heisen is exploitable nor should you. All I care about is whether he will fold a better hand or the same hand often enough combined with those times he calls our river raise with a lesser hand to make raising the river better than calling.


"in general, it is game-theoretically suboptimal to raise with calling hands."

Another statement that is dead wrong. Were not talking "In general" here. We're talking about a very specific situation. No platitude is going to help us here. If your statement is implying that raising the river with a calling hand has no place in game theory or poker then once again you dont know what youre talking about.

The essential point is this, there is a time to call with a calling hand and there is a time to raise with a calling hand. I understand how rare it is when the latter play comes up, but it still comes up and why not be prepared for it?


"whenever you are considering such a big deviation from optimal strategy, you better make sure your opponent is exploitable."

This isnt about deviating from optimal strategy this about making the play that will make us the most money in the long run. Do you understand how ridiculous your statement can sound?: If the right strategy is to deviate from the optimal strategy then the right strategy is the optimal strategy and therefor we're not deviating to begin with. I prefer to avoid this logical absurdity and approach the game this way: There are money plays and non-money plays. Will raising the river make us more money than calling the river in this spot? And then I try to answer this question.

In this case the answer is, I dont know. I dont know Heisen's game enough to accurately draw a conclusion or how he views OP. All I have really said is I love the thought process of the OP so far and that this hand contains many of the ingredients neccessary to make a value/bluff raise play more profitable than calling. Some key ingredients are sill missing becuz I dont know Heisen's game that well nor how he views OP. Im not gonna rule out the possiblity that the OP has enough information on these missing variables to make value/bluff raising the river the money play.

Even if Heisen comes in this thread and honestly says that raising the river with this hand in this spot is not a good play vs him, this hand should still be treated as a case study for anyone interested in adding or perfecting the value/bluff river raise play in their game.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

[ QUOTE ]
BTW RZK, the reason river bluff raises like this are so effective is because people dont play optimally.

The key idea is this: A solid TAG vs a solid tag, is never re-raise bluffing this river.
It's re-raise bluffs that kill strategies such as this... But because they are so so rare in practise, that raising in spots like this is an exploitable, yet effective play.



[/ QUOTE ]

heis,

if you say this bluff-raise is good against you then i believe you. however, the fact that you will never bluff-reraise the river is not the main component of your exploitability that would make this play valid. the main component is that once you bet this river you fold to a raise a suboptimally large percentage of the time (&gt;39% would be required if op's equity is 31% as he estimated).

whether playing exploitably in your spot is correct or not is a different question. it's certainly correct if by playing this way it is actually you who is exploiting your opponent.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

yeah, ur right.. I guess its more that I have to be folding a high % of my range for the play to be profitable..

I kept thinking that I only need to be folding with 10% of my range... but I have to actually be folding with 10% of my range THAT HE ISNT ALREADY BEATING.
Which, assuming I chose to fold my worse hands before my best hands, it works out to about 40% of my range (using his estimates... not mine [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img])

However, I still like it because I think a lot of TAGs are capable of making exploitable folds in this situation.

ps. great thread

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

[ QUOTE ]
Which, assuming I chose to fold my worse hands before my best hands, it works out to about 40% of my range

[/ QUOTE ]

This is another interesting thing about this hand. Whether you have JTs or AA, any of your one pair hands are basically bluff catchers when you call this river raise. There's no way you put me on one pair here, so all your pairs are virtually equal in strength.

Of course, its still a lot more likely you call with AA because it looks pretty or because you can post it in the NC thread when you lose. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Glad this thread is generating some good discussion.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

ILP,

i think some of our disagreement comes from semantics but some is conceptual.

[ QUOTE ]

"whenever you are considering such a big deviation from optimal strategy, you better make sure your opponent is exploitable."


[/ QUOTE ]

i think your disagreement with this statement comes from our different understanding of the word optimal. whenever i say "optimal" i always mean it in the formal game-theoretic sense. with this in mind, i think you'll agree that the above statement is pretty obvious.

[ QUOTE ]
Also your idea of exploitable is flawed. Remember exploitable plays are potentially the most profitable plays of all. Your goal should be to find as many players/spot where you can be as exploitable as possible and get away with it. If you think there is a natural dichotomy between "exploitable" and "expert" you are dead wrong. In other words, If you think these two terms are mutually exclusive you are dead wrong. So when you say "b/f'ing this river wouldn't be an expert laydown, but rather a very exploitable play" you really dont know what youre talking about.


[/ QUOTE ]

i think i do. i understand that an exploitable play is not the same as a bad play. when you are playing against a bad player the best strategy is usually a very exploitable one. but for this hand it's important to keep in mind that (a) heis is very far from the type of player who you would want to find "where you can be as exploitable as possible and get away with it", and (b) he himself shouldn't consistently be making such exploitable plays as folding to a river raise with 39% of his range against observant opponents because they will start bluff-raising him to death with any two cards. this second point is what my quoted statement was about.


[ QUOTE ]


" Quote:2) Is the river card unlikely to help your opponent? Yes.
disagree. heisen could have picked up a flush draw."

Just becuz Heisen could have a flush draw doesnt mean the river card is likely to have helped him.

[/ QUOTE ]

my point is that his play is consistent both with a top pair type hand and a flush draw, so i think it's misleading to say that a river card that completes a flush is unlikely to have helped him. i guess "unlikely" could mean very different things.

[ QUOTE ]
" Quote:8) Do you already have a calling hand on the river? Yes, you beat JTs/QJs/ and you tie KJ. Thats enough to call. having a calling hand should make you less inclined to raise, not more."

Again this statement is dead wrong. The fact that we already have to commit one bet on the river means we are now getting much better odds on a bluff raise. If we didnt have a calling hand on the river our bluff/raise odds would be cut in half.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
"in general, it is game-theoretically suboptimal to raise with calling hands."

Another statement that is dead wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

these two quotes are really about the same thing and may be our biggest point of disagreement. it is easy to show that (unless you are planning an elaborate b/3b bluff) _in a optimal strategy_ you should reserve your bluffs for hopeless hands. indeed, when you are bluffing, an optimal opponent will fold just enough for the ev of a bluff to be exactly 0. so as long as there exists a play with ev&gt;0 you should make it instead. in our case that play is calling.

the perspective "that we already have to commit one bet on the river means we are now getting much better odds on a bluff raise" is flawed because compared to bluffing with a hopeless hand there are now less _better_ hands that will fold. against a non-optimal opponent sometimes bluff-raising with a calling hand may be better than calling, but in that case bluff-raising with a hopeless hand would be _way_ better than folding.

overall, i wanna say that one _should_ care what optimal plays are, even if the correct strategy is to sometimes make non-optimal ones. if you have a good idea where optimality lies you can make more informed decisions about how, when, and whether to deviate from it and you will also be much better equipped to find exploitable traits in your opponents.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

river semibluff hehe

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

RZK, the reason these exploitable folds can be made,
is my range isnt very strong compared to his on this river and very few opponents are capable of bluffing the river with one pair to fold out top pair.

Since the worst hands in my range are top pair right now
and the worst hands in his range is bottom pair, all of those factors must be true..

It's just not something people do, so I thought an exploitable fold was correct in this situation.

Ive also debated in many threads about optimality with ILP... it'll go no where [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

My opinion is that we should play as to exploit the opponent to the best of our abilitites.
If we are unsure of what our opponents are capable of, or if they may be better than us, we should strive to play as optimal as possible.

I also think its very important to be aware of the "optimal play" in most situations, because it gives you a starting point to figure out how much you wish to deviate, in order to exploit your opponnent.. How much you should deviate from the optimal strategy can be derived from how much they deviate from the optimal strategy.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

"ILP,i think some of our disagreement comes from semantics but some is conceptual. i think your disagreement with this statement comes from our different understanding of the word optimal. whenever i say "optimal" i always mean it in the formal game-theoretic sense. with this in mind, i think you'll agree that the above statement is pretty obvious."


Perhaps your right that this could be a semantics issue. When I play poker I dont resort to a game theory perspective. I simply try to make the best play possible at every stage of the hand given my reads and my accumulated knowledge of the game. I know all the "standard" lines. Figuring out when and how to deviate from any putative line is what makes this game fun and challanging.


"i think i do. i understand that an exploitable play is not the same as a bad play. when you are playing against a bad player the best strategy is usually a very exploitable one. but for this hand it's important to keep in mind that (a) heis is very far from the type of player who you would want to find "where you can be as exploitable as possible and get away with it"

I disagree. Heisen is exploitable, youre exploitable, I am exploitable. Almost all players are exploitable. The trick is figuring out how one is exploitable and using that information to your advantage.

"and (b) he himself shouldn't consistently be making such exploitable plays as folding to a river raise with 39% of his range against observant opponents because they will start bluff-raising him to death with any two cards. this second point is what my quoted statement was about."

This sounds like an appeal to fear. Ive never worried about people bluff raising me in the future just cuz I made a good fold. Heisen make this river fold becuz he felt like it was the right play against this opponent on that board in this situation. It doesnt matter if you call such and such play exploitable, if Heisen think's its the right play given the information he has at his disposal then he should go with it.

"my point is that his play is consistent both with a top pair type hand and a flush draw, so i think it's misleading to say that a river card that completes a flush is unlikely to have helped him. i guess "unlikely" could mean very different things."

No unlikely means unlikely. This river card is much more likely to help OP than Heisen. I know Heisen can have a flush but this hand type should still be significantly discounted cuz we cant assume Heisen will check/raise with a turned flushdraw 100% of the time in a spot where it appears he has very little fold equity.



"these two quotes are really about the same thing and may be our biggest point of disagreement. it is easy to show that (unless you are planning an elaborate b/3b bluff) _in a optimal strategy_ you should reserve your bluffs for hopeless hands."

No, you should reserve your bluffs for those times you think bluffing is the right play.

"indeed, when you are bluffing, an optimal opponent will fold just enough for the ev of a bluff to be exactly 0. so as long as there exists a play with ev&gt;0 you should make it instead. in our case that play is calling."

I have never played against an optimal opponent before.

"the perspective "that we already have to commit one bet on the river means we are now getting much better odds on a bluff raise" is flawed because compared to bluffing with a hopeless hand there are now less _better_ hands that will fold."

Um, Hiesen is gonna have the same range here whether we have a hopeless hand or a calling hand. The fact that we already have a calling hand does mean we are getting better odds on a bluff. The range of hands were trying to fold is the same whether we have a calling hand or a folding hand.

"against a non-optimal opponent sometimes bluff-raising with a calling hand may be better than calling, but in that case bluff-raising with a hopeless hand would be _way_ better than folding."

This statement cannot be correct. There will be times when bluff/raising with a calling hand will be more profitable than bluff/raising with a folding hand.

"overall, i wanna say that one _should_ care what optimal plays are, even if the correct strategy is to sometimes make non-optimal ones. if you have a good idea where optimality lies you can make more informed decisions about how, when, and whether to deviate from it and you will also be much better equipped to find exploitable traits in your opponents.

Yes I agree with what you are saying as far as knowing all the standard lines is a very important prerequisite for learning when to take the nonstandard lines. I prefer to skip this tedious conceptual step of thinking in terms of "standard/nonstandard and optimal/nonoptimal" becuz these terms can belie what were trying to accomplish at the table, and that is simply to make as much money as possible. That's why I just divide all hands into money lines and non-money lines. There is only one money line for every hand you play and the key or fun is in finding it.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

This is so table flow and image dependent. Heis IS a candidate for this play because he CAN both have and fold a marginal 1 pair hand here given the action. I think I have done something like this to him on occasion but only if in the course of the session, I'd taken a similar line with the hand I was actually representing here on several occasions.

As an aside, this is a spot where your actual hand matters almost zero%, because if you have evaluated the situation correctly, he's calling your raise with a worse hand almost never. If you've evaluated the situation incorrectly, just type "SHANIA" in the chat box and move along...

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

[ QUOTE ]

In general, it is game-theoretically suboptimal to raise with calling hands.


[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm.. that's good.. but how we do know what a raising hand is and what a calling hand is? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]


[ QUOTE ]

_in a optimal strategy_ you should reserve your bluffs for hopeless hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

What "hopeless" hands will our hero have in his range after the action sequence occuring from the beginning of the hand to us facing Heisen's river bet?

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

ILP: I like your word choices. I like the terms money line/non-money line. That is clear. People use the term optimal way too loosely imo which causes all sorts of confusion. Optimal implies money/+EV/etc, but thats not the case if villian is exploitable. Exploitable also implies that its a bad/losing play, which is not always the case.

As an aside, when speaking about being game-theory optimal, is there even such a thing as an 'optimal line'? Doesn't game theory tell you to do every single action x% of the time? So as soon as somebody recommends a specific line, they are already tossing game theory out the window and looking at the specific situation?

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

[ QUOTE ]

People use the term optimal way too loosely imo which causes all sorts of confusion. Optimal implies money/+EV/etc, but thats not the case if villian is exploitable. Exploitable also implies that its a bad/losing play, which is not always the case.


[/ QUOTE ]

Exploitable doesn't mean it's bad play or a losing play. I think this board has generally decided to follow the definition of 'optimal' and 'exploitable' as used in the <u>Mathematics of Poker</u>. Neither have emotional value (bad/good) and they have clear definitions. I think they should be used.

[ QUOTE ]

As an aside, when speaking about being game-theory optimal, is there even such a thing as an 'optimal line'? Doesn't game theory tell you to do every single action x% of the time? So as soon as somebody recommends a specific line, they are already tossing game theory out the window and looking at the specific situation?


[/ QUOTE ]

No. In HE, because most ranges have so many hands in them, most hands can play "Pure" strategies. Hands on the border play mixed strategies.

In other words, you can often use your kicker to balance your play. If you have ace high in a certain situation and you've decided you only want to call down with ace high some of the time, you might call down with AK,AQ,AJ and fold others (if they're in your range.)

For a simple example (that makes no sense in context of a game), let's stay your range after an arbitrary action range is:

A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 AT AJ AQ AK

"Optimal" strategy might be:

AK-AQ: Raise/Call
AJ: 50%: Raise/Call 50%: Call
AT-A6: Call
A5: 80%: Raise/Fold 20%: Fold
A4-A2: Fold

Just because you recommend a specific line it doesn't mean you are tossing game theory out the window.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

aha, well perhaps 'all sorts of confusion' is just me personally heh. i should probably get around to finally reading that book.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

heis range on the turn is AA-QQ, AJ, KJ, QJ, JT, or possibly top set or middle set, but unlikely he has a set.

Hands that heis is calling a river raise with that are in his range:


exactly.

A tag that is playing well "can't" call this river. Every draw got there, and the TAG, Heis, knows his opponent knows his wtsd down is 5000.

This hand is so pretty.

Re: River semi-bluff (yes, river) vs. Heisenb3rg
 

[ QUOTE ]


What "hopeless" hands will our hero have in his range after the action sequence occuring from the beginning of the hand to us facing Heisen's river bet?

[/ QUOTE ]

A pair of 4/6's.. Possibly worth a call down on the turn because of semi bluffs in my range. Once the river card hits, its a hopeless hand.

Great now I think my WTSD is going to go to 46% after this thread..